


Man of the World

by tcheschire



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Sakumo, Camp Nanowrimo, Canon Compliant, Canon Suicide, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Historical References, M/M, Mostly Bakumatsu, Name Changes, Pre-Canon, Sakumo-centric, Samurai, Second Shinobi War, Tags May Change, Tetsu no Kuni | Land of Iron, With Some Sengoku Sprinkled In, Witness Protection, buddy road trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tcheschire/pseuds/tcheschire
Summary: No one ever asked him why he would serve in a war that wasn’t his. It was widely assumed that it was for love, though that wasn’t quite right. If anyone had asked, he would have told them, quite simply, “This is the way.”His legacy ended in disgrace, but nothing could take away the honor for which he had lived his life.Hatake Sakumo backstory. (Previously White Fang)
Relationships: Hatake Sakumo & Original Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

Legends were a fickle thing.  
  
Obviously, it was not an easy thing to build a legend – it was a sequence of being in the right place at the right time, so that one could convince the right people that one was there to do the right thing. It was a combination of skill, of tenacity, and a healthy heaping of the spirits’ blessings, and not every man had it in him.  
  
Yaranzo had known that, had grown up reading the stories his village had imported from outside. Even though the warriors in those stories had made their feats seem a simple matter, he had been raised with a healthy level of skepticism, and he knew that not just anyone could be a hero, could be a legend whose name would grace the lips of generations to come.  
  
He had known that, and he had still left the village to seek out his fortune, build his own legend. His history matched theirs – a young man from a family of no renown, who called a nameless village at the edge of the map home. When his siblings had died in infancy, and his parents of the white rattle when he was just a boy, it seemed predetermined that he would alter destiny.  
  
He coughed once, ignoring how thick the sensation felt in his throat, and attempted to raise a hand to swipe at a fly that landed in a drop of blood on his lips.  
  
The spirit seeped from him with his blood, and his head lolled to the side. He took in the great expanse of bodies, of corpses that littered the battlefield, and he allowed himself a small chuckle, coughing another mist of blood that delighted the flies in his area.  
  
He had been foolish. Foolish to think that destiny could have even considered him worthy, considered him at all.  
  
At sixteen, he certainly was not the youngest to offer himself to the daimyo’s forces against the shogunate. There were boys as young as six beside him, proud children from families with great names – names with connections and stature that dwarfed the boys themselves. Even so, even without that great name to bolster himself, he was a mercenary, and he was happy to conscript himself with a scrawl and been fitted with a mismatched kit at a nearby armory. Pay would come after, he was told, and he didn’t mind one bit.  
  
_The time is now_ , he had thought, foolishly. _I have traveled from village to village, offered my body and my blade, and now the daimyo will learn my name – side by side in battle!  
  
_Neither daimyo nor shogun had even entered the battle, he learned once the press forward had begun. The daimyo was with his lesser vassals and his high-ranking samurai escorts, sitting in a tent along a high ridge, drinking sake from fine porcelain and wearing armor too shiny for such a muddy field. Of the shogun, there had been no sign.  
  
Yaranzo had not had the time to be disappointed, swiping immediately in fear at the hulking brute that appeared before him, his arm outstretched with katana in hand, shining with the warrior’s light that Yaranzo had read about in the stories, heard about in whispers along the march.  
  
The sword in his own hands was of unknown origin, a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down that the armorer had tossed him along with the ill-fitting quilted karuta he wore across his chest and the mis-matched hood that had to be secured with more straps than it had plating. He had attempted to sharpen the sword as the march progressed, not quite getting the hang of the whetstone by the time they reached the battlefield.  
  
Nevertheless, nicks and all, it had gotten the job done, and the brute went down, the sheath of his warrior’s light fading uselessly from his katana into the stench of blood in the air.  
  
Yaranzo attempted once more to lift his hand; the fly had brought friends this time. Still his limb betrayed him and would not rise, only the barest twitch of his finger, and the insects danced along his face. He could not bring himself to be irritated with them, for he knew he would be dead soon anyway. They were simply waiting their turn.  
  
He wished it would rain. It had rained all during the march, turning the road into a miserable slurry of mush and sleet that soaked through his multiple pairs of thick tabi, and the cloud cover overhead that morning had even threatened snow; and yet here he was, laying amongst so many corpses, dying in the mud with blood drying on his lips.  
  
Sighing, allowing a bitter laugh to leave his throat once more, he closed his eyes and felt the cool morning sunlight against his cheek.  
  
Wherever he was going now, he hoped his family would be there to greet him.  
  
He flickered in and out of consciousness, the passage of time swirling about him, ethereal, in a warm haze that would have made him want to vomit if he’d had the energy. When his eyes closed, Yaranzo could see flashes of the battle, scenes that he was sure that he had been present for but had no accountable memory of.  
  
He felt the bodies around him surge forward, felt the vague after-effects of hollering at the top of his lungs because that was what everyone else was doing, gripped the heft of the unfamiliar sword in his hand. Had the sky been so red? It wasn’t now, but then it had certainly seemed so, with its low-hanging clouds that the rising sun could only struggle to peek through.  
  
He had never killed a man. At least, not that he could remember – many of the jobs he had taken in the small bordering villages just miles from his home were simpler in nature: courier services, delivering messages, the occasional bodyguarding. But just as his town was too small to gain a foothold, so too were they, and he had to venture farther south. Yaranzo was certain, now, that he had taken the life of an enemy, but in the thick of it he could not hold himself accountable to a number.  
  
Better not to know, he supposed. If it was too low, he would be disappointed in himself, at his uselessness; if it was too high, he would be filled with such regret that his time on this earth was already at an end. But if it was a mystery, then he could die with the knowledge that, regardless of degree, he had made a difference.  
  
The daimyo’s forces had been the victors, that much had been clear from the raucous cries he heard after he fell. Yaranzo could not recognize the song they chanted back and forth to one another, but he was certain it was in the tongue of the Northwest Iron Country. And that, at least, brought him solace.  
  
From somewhere beside him, not quite far off but not so close he could reach them, he heard a small choking sound, a burble, and a quiet snuffling. He tilted his head as far as his neck would allow, and from the barest periphery of his vision he saw the fraying rope of a childsize waraji, half-cocked from the boy’s foot. The choking sound filtered through a soft moan, and Yaranzo realized that the boy was crying.  
  
“Hey,” he called softly. He could not move in the boy’s direction, but from the way the sound stopped abruptly he knew the boy heard. He allowed himself a soft smile, hoping that the expression would come through in his tone as he spoke comforting nothings to the child nearby. “Hey, don’t weep. What’s your name?”  
  
A pause, then a strained, wet, “Kouji.”  
  
“Kouji. A strong name. You fought bravely, Kouji. I saw it, the spirits saw it. Your family will be proud of you for generations to come.”  
  
The sounds of crying continued, and another burble. “My mother,” Kouji gasped, the sound dragging moist across Yaranzo’s ears. “Want – “  
  
He finally understood. “Don’t speak. It will only hurt for a moment longer, Kouji. You’re a warrior, Kouji, and your mother’s breast will swell when she speaks of you, and how you protected her home, for many years to come.”  
  
Kouji’s breathing became frantic around his sobs and the hole in his throat, and Yaranzo hummed a few refrains of the celebratory chant he had heard earlier to distract the boy until the noises subsided with a dewy rattle and the quietest of sighs.  
  
Yaranzo shut his eyes, and offered a small prayer for the boy. He was not religious, in particular, and he had no idea whether the boy was, either – but he figured if any time were ideal to plead the spirits’ grace, it would be now. And there were no guarantees that the living would do them the honor.  
  
With any luck, it would be his turn soon, and he could ascend to the highest point of the Three Wolves.  
  
He wished it would rain. The clouds still hung heavy overhead, but the sun painted the sky with bold streaks that hurt his eyes terribly. It could be late morning, early afternoon, or even the next day – Yaranzo could not tell. His internal clock was not quite up to par.  
  
The battle had begun in the morning – the daimyo was a romantic, it seemed, and the shogun had agreed with his request that the fighting begin just as the sun crested the mountains in the distance. Something about the blessing of the gods, Yaranzo thought he remembered hearing from the more fervently religious of the brigade. He couldn’t speak for the gods, but the avid strategists among them agreed it was a sound choice against the faction they faced.  
  
There had been a light rain, not quite cold enough to snow, just as tensions reached their peak, the vanguard shifting their weight from foot to foot as they stared down their mirror-images across the valley. But by the time his legion moved, the rain had stopped and there was nothing but mud to suck their sandals as they tried to surge forward.  
  
The armor had done its job, ill-fitting though it was. He was ashamed to admit it in front of his fellows, but he did not have quite the necessary experience to dodge when a hit came his way, although he picked the theory of it up rather quickly. Before the synapses fired for the action, though, he managed one or two swipes against him by securing the blade just beneath his armpit and swiveling away. If the searing heat in his side was anything to judge by, though, this did him more harm than good.  
  
_Bleeding out is a slow way to die_ , he thought, more exasperated by that than anything else in his circumstance.  
  
He no longer could smell anything but the smoldering of flesh from fires that had not yet guttered, and his lips had cracked heavily by now, between the panting of his breath and the passes that his tongue made, so he could only taste blood. The edges of his vision had finally begun to blur, and combined with the numbness in his fingers he felt as though he were fading out of this life and into the next, simply evaporating into the air as a puddle on a roadside.  
  
He had not imagined that his death would come like this, so slow and so…anti-climactic. Yaranzo had prepared himself for pain, had steeled himself to the possibility during his meditations and during the training he had undergone, but this was somehow worse.  
  
A light snort escaped his nostrils, and he allowed his eyelids to flutter closed again.  
  
Not that it mattered, he supposed. It was not as though he could change the method of his death, at this point.  
  
He cast his mind back, far back into the recesses of his past, hoping to find something to distract himself with – it had worked for his few brief moments with Kouji, and there would be no one to ease his passing, so he focused on the things he remembered. The bright sheen of his father’s distinct hair when he ducked under the awning upon his return, the bell-tinkling of his mother’s laugh as she teased his father, the lullabies that they had sung to him when he was an infant, and then again later with each child they lost.  
  
He hummed one, weakly, focusing on the vibrations as they traveled down his throat and into his chest. The rumble was quite faint, but he still felt it, pressed against the side of his karuta. He hummed each note precisely, deliberately, extending them perhaps longer than was called for in the song, but as he hummed he felt the heat in his chest spread and the sensation in his fingers dull until he was awash in the sound he made. Quite vaguely, he saw the dim forms of his parents before his eyes, and felt their gentle grip on his arms as they welcomed him home.

* * *

The heat was unbearable. It spread along from his side, intense and spitting acid into his heart, and blossomed along his chest in great slithering vines, up his shoulder and down his arm, around his gut and along the column of his throat. His armor had disappeared, possibly burned off by the heat – was that what was happening? Was it simply that the divine fire was consuming his earthly vessel to make his spirit ready for the afterlife?  
  
Were there clothes in the afterlife? Were they necessary? He had never died before, so he wasn’t sure how it worked. For now, though, he only felt the heat, the incredible burning across every inch of his skin. The softest of breezes ghosted across his shoulders and he convulsed into a shiver, which only deepened when there was the unmistakable sensation of water being delicately pressed against his face and neck.  
  
Yaranzo peered out through bleary eyes and found a solemn face looking back at him, gentle in its seriousness, eyes bright and light and grey boring into his. There was a gentle whisper, and cool fingers danced across his forehead while he struggled to part his lips to speak, to ask the kami for her name, to thank her for the honor of her blessing.  
  
He could not imagine that it was every day that a goddess herself would ease the passing of a human into their rest, although granted he had no point of reference.  
  
The sound of the kami’s voice was drowned out, sluggish underneath the pounding in his ears, but he sensed that it was soft and lyrical, and he desperately wanted to hear more of it.  
  
His breath tore from his throat, and he fell into the black once more before he got the chance.

* * *

When he next felt the gentleness of the breeze on his skin, he expected that this was it, and he would finally find himself ethereal at the summit of the three wolves; he expected that when he opened his eyes, he would see his mother, his father, and all of his little siblings.  
  
Instead, he saw stark canvas and a low-burning brazier; he saw the bamboo frame of a field cot, and then another, and then another. The air smelled like pus and sweat and antiseptic, and not at all like the death of the field where he had lain nor the crisp air of a mountain summit. Rather than the keening of hawks or the bark of a crow, Yaranzo heard soft murmuring and quiet breathing, steady, low, sleeping.  
  
It took him too long to notice that he was alive, and by the time he had come to the realization a slight girl wearing a dingy smock made her way over to him, a basin sloshing with water balanced on her hip. She cast him a faint smile, and he saw the steel in her eyes twinkle for him.  
  
“You’ve woken,” she said, setting the basin onto the ground by his cot, next to a low stool. She brushed the backs of her fingers against his forehead delicately, then held her hand to her own forehead, nodding somewhat. “Your fever appears to have broken, thanks to all spirits.”  
  
“Fever?” he said weakly, attempting and failing to push himself up onto an elbow.  
  
Seating herself, she smiled at him again. “Mm. Nasty gash under your arm became infected. You were very near the end, samurai, but it seems this life isn’t done with you yet. I shall have to send a message to Baiganemaru-sama, he’ll want to know.”  
  
“Baigan – the daimyo?”  
  
Very delicately, but with practiced motions she pressed him back onto the cot, dipping a cloth into the basin, wringing it expertly, and dabbing it along his forehead, down his throat, along his collarbone. The steel in her eyes twinkled when she looked at him, and though he could not guess why, he enjoyed the playfulness in her gaze.  
  
“Mm,” she hummed again, deftly pushing aside the thin cotton robe to wipe down his chest; her fingers brushed against the ribs along his right side, and he hissed sharply. “It seems you’ve done him a great service.”  
  
What this service was, she would not tell him, insisting that he still needed rest. “Details can come later – the story won’t change,” she said instead, completing his bed bath with little fuss. She hummed while she worked, an odd lullaby that he had never heard, but that he imagined must come from her hometown.  
  
Before he had the chance to ask her where that was, or even to ask for her name, he felt himself beginning to doze, his body suddenly very heavy against the thin camp mattress, overtaken by fatigue and ache and the sound of her voice in his ears.  
  
As she promised, details came later. Her name was Saki, and she came from a very small town in the Land of Waterfalls, and yes, she laughed, the lullaby was one from her childhood. Slowly, over the course of the next several days while she performed small, routine bandage changes and let the pus and toxic blood from his wound, she told him news of the battle, what she had heard from the victors, and what she had heard from other survivors regardless of allegiance: he had been right in believing that the daimyo’s forces had prevailed during the battle, but the shogun was not quite ready to relinquish control of the state and had retreated farther North and farther East.  
  
“There are rumors,” she continued, one day while feeding him a bowl of rice gruel and fire roasted smelt, “that the shogun disappeared into the clouds far to the east to ask the aid of the thunder shinobi.”  
  
The tone in her voice indicated how likely she thought that was to happen, but Yaranzo frowned nevertheless. Though he did not understand much of the ruling classes or their squabbles, it was well known that the shogun was against foreign aid – in fact, he thought, that was the impetus behind the current clash to begin with, with many of the daimyo wanting to reach out to other nations – perhaps even to broach allyship with the mysterious shinobi nations.  
  
She laughed, patting his arm as she stood. “Don’t look so serious, it’s just a rumor. Besides, from what I’ve heard about the shinobi of the Land of Lightning, they aren’t fond of travelers, themselves. Certainly not from a samurai nation.” Pressing her hand against his forehead one more time to check his temperature, she gathered the soiled bowls and bandages and turned. “You sleep now, samurai. You’re going to have a visitor tomorrow.”  
  
Though Saki snuffed the candle on his bedside table as she left him, there were still many soldiers awake in their beds in various stages of repair; some, having been expertly mended from nigh critical wounds by a prim old woman with fine, unlined hands that radiated with that same warrior’s light, sat up in their beds or on the beds of their neighbors, laughing or playing games; others, no longer mortally wounded but without the benefit of being miraculously healed, tossed and turned, uncomfortable in their camp cots and unable to sleep.  
  
Yaranzo found himself in the latter camp, in addition to the excitement of the news Saki had given him upon her departure. She had continued to tell him full details of the account she had been given by the daimyo, but regardless Yaranzo found himself making guesses, and concocting scenarios in his mind to fit the occasion.  
  
He wanted to sleep, wanted to be rested and sharp for the daimyo, to prove himself every inch the warrior so that his reputation could swell, but his busy mind and the bustle of his corner of the tent left him unable. Instead, he stared up at the canvas of the medic tent, trying hard to imagine what the stars in the night sky looked like: would they be any different after he left?  
  
He did not have much time to play sage, though, as a weight deposited itself onto the end of his bed and he jolted at the shock. Seated, one leg half cocked and with his arms crossed into the sleeves of the thin robe he wore, was a young man; the fine features, from his high cheekbones and catlike eyes, made it difficult to pinpoint exactly how old he was, but his posture and the grin he gave Yaranzo the impression that he was around his age.  
  
“You,” the young man said, leaning forward so that a far off candle lit his silhouette, “have been the talk of the daimyo’s household, my friend.”  
  
Saki had mentioned as much, though in less aggrandizing terms. Trying to play it cool, Yaranzo pushed himself upright and shrugged a noncommittal shoulder. “I’ve heard. It’s said I did him a ‘service’.”  
  
The young man’s eyes glittered like beetle carapaces in the dim light; in the darkness, it was impossible to see what color they were. “Mm, must have done well, then. I hear he’s even going to come here tomorrow to see you, whatever you’ve done.”  
  
Yaranzo frowned. Saki had mentioned that, too, but only as she was leaving – the mystery was strange, and in the back of his mind he thought that she could have at least given him more warning than that. “Really well,” he added thoughtfully.  
  
The young man tossed his head back in a laugh, prompting a chorus of shushing from some of the nearby beds. “Incredibly well,” he agreed, his voice turning excited, “so well that you turned the tide of victory and the future of the Land of Iron will know your name in perpetuity.”  
  
There was a fluidity with which the young man spoke, a poetic quality that made Yaranzo’s head spin. In an attempt not to let himself get swept away by it, this strange noble charisma, he simply laughed quietly. “Maybe not as far as all of that,” he demurred. “I’m just a mercenary, he’s probably just going to give me my payment.”  
  
“In person?” The young man waggled his eyebrows, his grin widening. “What’s your name, then, that makes you so special?”  
  
“Yaranzo,” he answered. “It isn’t anything special, just the name my parents gave me.”  
  
“ _Yaranzo_?” the young man parroted. “That doesn’t sound like any Iron Samurai I’ve heard of. You can’t be the cornerstone of our great nation’s history with a name like that.”  
  
Yaranzo didn’t disagree, but names were not something a man could simply _have_. With a great name came a great reputation, prestige, and he didn’t…he just didn’t have all of that. “We were poor, from a small village in the North. I’m lucky to have it.”  
  
“If you say so.” The grin on the young man’s face spread, and it was at this point that it reached his eyes. He said nothing further.  
  
Canting his head, Yaranzo considered the young man. “Well, what’s your name, then?” he challenged – he wouldn’t let this boy give him such a hard time, considering how likely it was that he had a true samurai name.  
  
The young man pointed at himself, perhaps a bit coyly. “Me?” At Yaranzo’s nod, the gently pointing index finger became a thumb jabbed into his chest. “My name is Uchitaro. I’ve been fighting with the daimyo’s forces for a few years now – finally got myself the scar to prove it!” Here, he raised one hand, his palm facing himself, and showed off the twisting snake of a scar that slithered up his forearm. “My gauntlet twisted, and I got stuck when I tried to block.”  
  
Nodding solemnly, Yaranzo had to agree it was a manly scar, befitting of a samurai’s first. Wordlessly, he gently tugged at the neck of his robe, slipping his right shoulder and arm out, raising the arm to show his own still-healing wound.  
  
Uchitaro whistled low, leaning forward to inspect it with great interest. “You got me beat – no wonder you’re still in here. Medics haven’t taken care of that yet?”  
  
Yaranzo slipped his arm back into the robe’s sleeve and readjusted the robe about himself. He frowned. As far as he knew, the medics had been taking incredible care of him – that was why he was alive. “A nurse, Saki, has been tending to me.”  
  
Uchitaro shook his head fervently, reclining back into his prior position. “A medic, not a nurse.” He snorted softly, muttering under his breath, “They’re treating people like you with roughspun and unguents like we’re still warring states, whereas people like me get their boo-boos treated with chakra.”  
  
Ignoring the rest of the statement, not truly understanding what Uchitaro meant, Yaranzo’s interest piqued. “Chakra?”  
  
His face lighting up from within, Uchitaro began to tell him all about the world around them, a world that Yaranzo had never seen, never experienced: using grand, sweeping gestures and dramatic facial expressions, Uchitaro explained what he knew about chakra, how it was the internal energy source for all humans, but in different quantities and with different usage. He explained that the ninja of the shinobi nations, founded and settled a generation back, were most heavily associated with chakra, as they used it in great, flashy ways with their jutsu – it was why, he continued, not without a wry bitterness in his tone, the shinobi had majority control over the great nations and their daimyo.  
  
This led to Uchitaro explaining that while the samurai, too, had stores of chakra – what the people of Yaranzo’s village had always referred to as _warrior’s light –_ the spirituality of their bushido allowed for different uses of it. Enraptured, Yaranzo pressed him to go on, having not heard these kinds of stories since his mother died in his sixth year – and, apparently happy to entertain, Uchitaro obliged.  
  
They chattered together in this way until the last candle extinguished. When Uchitaro winked at him and excused himself, Yaranzo laid back in his cot feeling much lighter than before, and managed to find rest.  
  
Though Saki woke him just nearing dawn, he felt refreshed, and excited. He did not know what the daimyo had to say to him, but he was eager to accept the daimyo’s attention with all the grace he could muster. After a brief argument about the state of his bandage, Saki allowed him to bathe on his own using a large basin outside the back end of the medical tent.  
  
As she walked with him, supporting some of his weight against her, Yaranzo paid more rapt attention to the goings-on of the tent itself, searching for the barest hint of the medic-nin that Uchitaro had told him about the night before. When he asked her about it, she scoffed. “Medic-nin are expensive if you’re not part of a shinobi nation. They did the heavy lifting, and now we have to let our bodies do the rest.”  
  
After a stiff struggle to reach a swathe of skin along his torso, for lack of one good arm, Saki helped him finish, then dragged him back into the tent to redress his wound, providing him with a crisp white yukata to wear, a marked improvement over the thin roughspun robe he had been wearing until that point.  
  
Finally, more winded than he wanted to admit, Saki eased him back into his cot, even finding an extra cushion from an empty bed nearby to support his weight while he sat upright. Though he was terribly excited, he fought to keep his eyes open, wanting nothing more than to sleep – Saki appeared to notice this, and laughed at him, pressing a steaming mug of twig tea into his hands.  
  
He must have dozed then, because when he opened his eyes next the mug was empty and on his bedside table, and Saki was shaking him gently by the shoulder. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance of the tent, where he could see two samurai in full armor standing on either side of the entrance, their hands resting lightly on the hilt of their swords in silent promise.  
  
The flap rustled, and Yaranzo sat at attention, a jolt of excitement traveling up his spine. He saw the first head, with its cruel curved horns, duck beneath the flaps, brushed aside by a bandaged arm. The samurai strode gracefully, followed by three others in similar kit, stopping short at the foot of Yaranzo’s bed. After a short bow, the samurai who entered first removed his helm and Yaranzo found himself facing the same catlike eyes and high-planed cheekbones from the night before. Uchitaro winked at him, only the barest suggestion of a grin on his features and he stepped off to one side, waiting at attention.  
  
Yaranzo felt the daimyo before he heard or saw him, and if he had been asked he would have said that the daimyo had a cool presence, but smooth and ringing, like the sound of a whetstone over a blade. When his emerged from the rustling cloth of the entryway, Yaranzo sucked in a breath: though the daimyo was not an old man, perhaps in his forties, every inch of him was gleamed like harsh ice. From the top of his head, his sleek white-gold hair plaited back sharply from his face, to the angular lines in his face, and the gem-cut set of his dove-grey eyes, it was clear that this was a man forged from the harsh winters that his country had to offer.  
  
The daimyo did not rush, each stride calculated down the aisle as each of the soldiers sat a little straighter in their beds, despite him paying them no mind. When he stopped at the foot of Yaranzo’s bed, he held Uchitaro’s eyes for the briefest of moments before turning – not a sharp turn, but a glide in Yaranzo’s direction. Those eyes landed on his, and he felt chilled; perhaps now he understood a bit better about chakra, for this man certainly had control over his.  
  
The daimyo considered him for a moment, an elegant hand waving off a mug of twig tea that Saki offered him.  
  
“You know who I am?” The voice that left the daimyo’s mouth was deep, barely above a whisper; it was a voice that was used to being listened to, and it held Yaranzo rapt.  
  
He bowed as deeply as he could, his neck a great arc of supplication. “Ha! You honor me with your presence, O-Baiganemaru-sama.” His voice did not break, and was perhaps louder than it needed to be; from his periphery, he heard Uchitaro snicker.  
  
There was silence for a beat. Then, subtly, the daimyo bent just lightly at the hip – it was the barest of bows, but it brought a hush to the entire tent. Straightening, the daimyo clasped his hands behind his back, once again bearing down on Yaranzo with that stony gaze. “You may know,” he said, still so quiet that Yaranzo had to strain his ears to hear, “that during the Battle for the Wolves a week past, that my son was among the number of warriors who participating in bringing us victory.”  
  
Despite himself, Yaranzo’s head snapped up in time to see the daimyo gesture slightly to Uchitaro, who winked at him again.  
  
Son…?  
  
“Although I supported his decision in taking up arms, I would have preferred him to have been a seated cavalryman, or perhaps – “  
  
“Father,” Uchitaro winced, his voice pained as he forced a laugh. “I hope we did not come here to hash out old arguments?”  
  
Feathers somewhat ruffled, the daimyo straightened. “I suppose not,” he admitted, glancing at Uchitaro from the corner of his eye in a way that told Yaranzo that the conversation had only been paused. “In any case, because it was his decision to fight among the infantry on the field, this allowed the enemy greater opportunity to take him from me. It is my understanding that you,” he continued, “are to thank that he is present with us today.”  
  
Yaranzo could only stare. Through the crush of bodies, the press of killing intent from the assailants, he had no memory of doing any such thing. If such a thing were true, it was by virtue of luck alone. He remained silent.  
  
Unphased, the daimyo continued, gesturing to Uchitaro, who raised his bandaged arm in a mirror of the way he had done the night before when they had compared injuries. “It is by your dedication and selflessness that Testumaru escaped with such a trifling injury, and for this, you have my gratitude.  
  
“Furthermore,” he continued, while Yaranzo’s head spun as he tried to work through the information that was coming to light, “you may have heard the news that our great shogun has vanished after the battle.”  
  
Here, he could not keep quiet. “To the ninja of Kumogakure, right?”  
  
This brought a change to the daimyo’s face, a heavy consideration before he spoke further. “Such is the intelligence we have gathered. I’ve tasked my son with finding the shogun, and bringing him home,” the daimyo said, his unsettlingly pale eyes boring into Yaranzo’s. “And you will go with him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is inspired in part by an ask that was posted on viktormaru's Tumblr, which I can't find right now whoops, about Sakumo's backstory. Since we know basically nothing about him, but we can infer a lot, it makes sense to me that he would be a samurai - so the research began, and I wrote this for my Camp Nano project in July.
> 
> I've got a few more chapters in backlog, and I'd love to hear your thoughts! And if you're feeling this, feel free to check out my other works, or check out my writing Tumblr at [tchschirewrites](https://tcheschirewrites.tumblr.com).


	2. Chapter 2

Since, as Saki had all but confirmed, all of the medical nin had cleared out after the battle, it was up to sheer force of will to get his body back to fighting fit in the time that Tetsumaru (Uchitaro? He could not keep it straight) and his advisors prepared for their journey east into the Land of Lightning.  
  
The daimyo had not given Yaranzo any time to consider the proposal (offer? order? He couldn’t get that straight, either) before scrutinizing him once more with those chilly eyes and sweeping away in a flurry of silk and shining armor. Uchitaro (Tetsumaru?) had not stayed behind to clear matters up, although he had hesitated and turned to Yaranzo with a brief wink and an, “Ahh,” before he followed his father out of the tent.  
  
Perhaps taking pity on what must have been a comically confused expression on his face, Saki tutted gently and wiped his face down with a damp cloth, pressing another mug of steaming twig tea into his hands. He could not hear whatever she muttered then, so lost he was in the hurricane of his thoughts. By some fortune, perhaps by the grace of his exhaustion, he managed to find sleep again, as he woke again abruptly to the mug sitting empty on his bedside and a loose bound scroll propped against it.  
  
The missive, he learned when he asked Saki to read it to him, was from Uchitaro (although it had been signed Tetsumaru, and his name had been followed by a string of titles that sent his head to spirals once more), who explained the minimum of the situation from his perspective:  
  
The battle that they had both participated in was more than a simple dispute over foreign policy, as had been the ostensible motive released to the citizens of the Land of Iron: it was a coup, with his father, Baiganemaru, the daimyo of the longest standing, seeking to overthrow the regime of the shogun. He had the support of other regional daimyo, Uchitaro explained, and the support of much of the peasant classes as well.  
  
Here, Saki snorted, skipping over what appeared to be a large section of text before continuing:  
  
During the battle, Uchitaro wrote, it was true that his gauntlet had slipped and twisted along his arm, and he had set his katana aside to straighten it. ‘ _Like a green babe,’_ he bemoaned, and in leaving himself open an enemy saw fit to attack, ‘ _as was his right_.’ By chance, this was an area of the great field where Yaranzo had been, and mistook the attack for one aimed at him – and had performed the move he had perfected during the earlier morning, securing the opponent’s blade against his side and twisting it out of the enemy’s grip.  
  
Yaranzo lifted one hand gently to his side, the fingers gently pressing against the sheared flesh that had not even begun to knit.  
  
_‘It is my belief, my friend, that you were so grievously injured due to my negligence – and that is a lifedebt that I intend to keep close to my heart, as long as I shall live. For it is to you that I owe that life.’  
  
_“Real poets, these nobles,” Saki commented dryly, turning the scroll over idly. “Oh, there’s more.”  
  
Uchitaro had begged his father for the chance to pursue the shogun into shinobi country, under the guise that the shogun’s capture is to secure his family’s honor and to preserve the dignity of the Land of Iron – not wanting to admit that it was due to his shame on the battlefield.  
  
‘ _You have held my life in your hands before, my friend, and I should trust you with it in from this day on, if you would allow me. Wherever I go in battle, I should like you by my side – together, I truly believe, we can bring peace and unity to this great samurai nation._ ’  
  
Yaranzo sat silently through the reading, scarcely reacting to Saki’s commentary.  
  
Was this what the gods had for him? Was this where his legend began? His fingers gripped into the sheet, and he felt the tinge of his wound, heat spiderwebbing across his side and into his torso.  
  
When he looked up, he found Saki watching him carefully. They looked at one another in silence for a moment, and then she sighed, rolling the scroll back to its original form and depositing it back onto the bedside table.  
  
“Your wound will open if you push yourself too hard, but you will need to work to get your body back to where it needs to be,” she said, appraising him as she stood, grabbing the empty mug from the bedside table. “I won’t say I condone it, but the mountains in the Land of Lightning are not like the mountains here. They’ve eaten greater men than you.”  
  
He had but little time to prepare – he asked Saki to check the scroll from Uchitaro, and she confirmed that they were to leave for the Cloud ninjas’ village in one week’s time.  
  
“It will be a long journey,” she said to him that evening, pressing a cloth to his side that was soaked in some foul poultice which made him hiss. “Several days by horseback until you reach the border, but once the incline begins the horses will be useless – you’ll have to either buy mules, or continue on foot. Given the visibility, it’s likely to be on foot.”  
  
“You sound as though you’ve been there before,” he teased her, tugging the robe about his person once the poultice and bandage were secured. “Are you so well-traveled?”  
  
She sniffed, shooting him a severe look, before insisting he go to sleep.  
  
He did not. The moment Saki’s footsteps receded into the night, he swung his legs over the side of the cot, testing the floor with the balls of his feet before he pushed his weight off from the cot with his good arm. His injury tugged against the skin of his side, but he did not feel it split, and took this as a victory. Padding gently to the trunk at the end, he prized it open and found his armor and sword – as he had suspected, it had been kept here as his, rather than returned to the armory whence it had come.  
  
Putting on the armor with only one arm was a feat; he did not want to raise his right arm too high, for fear of rupturing the wound, and instead pressed it firmly against his chest, placing extra bandages round his torso to pad the wound against the body of the karuta.  
  
If he thought the armor had been worn, he became absolutely disconsolate at the state of the borrowed katana. It had been merely dull before, a cheap thing made of cheap steal and overworked, but now the blade was full of nicks and dings, almost serrated and surely not nearly as useful.  
  
Sighing heavily, he slipped the blade back into its scabbard, sliding it into the belt around his waist anyway. It would have to do for now. He couldn’t very well ask the daimyo for a new sword, not when he had just been tasked with the protection of his firstborn son, and given a mission that was essentially the fate of the nation.  
  
Yaranzo’s fist tightened around the hilt of his useless katana. All the more reason that he had to train, as much as possible, so that he would fulfill his service to his master. It was every samurai’s dream to have a master – a true master, not simply the man whose coin filled his pockets, but an actual patron for his devotion – and since he had left his village he had scarcely imagined that he would have found himself useful to arguably the most powerful family in the country. Even the lack of distinction, that fuzzy line between father and son, did not bother him in the slightest.  
  
He would do whatever it took for either of these men.  
  
That first night, his training merely consisted of moving about in the armor, a dare to his body that it could be done. He slunk out of the tent, his breathing only mildly winded, and set off into the night, making laps about the area, seeing the compound for the first time. As he went, he pushed himself just that little bit harder, creating obstacles for himself to leap onto or across, wincing and groaning through some of the more difficult maneuvers. Stopping occasionally to check the integrity of his makeshift padded bandage, he completed the circuit when he smelt that the poultice had turned sour with his blood.  
  
Saki would yell at him in the morning for that, he felt certain.  
  
Sneaking back into the tent, he shed the armor carefully, replacing it piece by piece into the trunk before he heaved himself back into the cot, attempting valiantly to swallow his panting breaths. Sweat dotted his forehead from the undue strain, and he sighed when he pressed the padding on his side and found that his hand came away red.  
  
Rather than simply lying back and allowing exhaustion to overwhelm him, he straightened his spine and tucked his legs underneath him, fighting to regain control of his breath. He had been mildly curious ever since Uchitaro had explained what little he knew of chakra to him, especially since he was sure that he had seen it on the battlefield, but once he had come face to face with the daimyo and felt the pressure that came from his gaze alone, he wanted very much to be able to control that force on his own.  
  
The way Uchitaro had explained it to him, it was a variant of a human’s life force, and it was believed that every human had a reserve of their own. _If that is the case_ , Yaranzo thought, _then accessing it should come from looking inside?  
  
_He liked to think he was aware of the things his body was telling him, and he hoped that the concepts were much the same. He had practiced meditation once or twice, after helping the local monk of a roadside town to carry provisions to the nearby temple – he hadn’t been particularly good at it, but that was what practice was for, right? He wouldn’t achieve Nirvana, but he hoped it would be sufficient. Even if the monk himself hadn’t been able to access and utilize his chakra, which Yaranzo was uncertain, it was still as good a place as any to start.

* * *

Saki yelled at him the next morning.  
  
Yaranzo woke in the cot, seated upright, although the sheets had tangled around his legs, and the bleeding in his side had intensified, painting streaks of crimson down his side and about his hips. Though he had been careful not to leave any outward sign that he had ignored her wishes and taken to activity in the night, she still seemed to know exactly what he had done, and had let him know in no uncertain terms how unhappy that had made her – and what an idiot that made him – as she none-too-gently stripped and replaced the sopping bandage.  
  
He accepted the dressing down meekly, thanking her in his most polite tone when she pressed a bowl of gruel into his hands and left a steaming mug of her twig tea on his bedside table. Though far from a balm, she sniffed primly, collecting the soiled bandages and turning off without another word. Her wrath, it seemed, was enough to make the other soldiers in beds nearby cautious of him, their gazes filled with a quiet, naked pity even as they kept their distance.  
  
That was fine with him. Even if he wanted their help to train, none of them were in quite good enough condition to spar, and the briefest of glances about the tent let him know that none of these men could help him with chakra. He wasn’t sure if it was the benefit of his meditation throughout the night, or if he was imagining it, but he thought he could _feel_ it.  
  
So he allowed himself the luxury of taking a walk, down the aisle of the medical tent, then outside – his wound throbbed – and he made a slow circuit around the encampment. It looked markedly different by the light of day, dark slush piled where carts drove by and heavy footprints in the late spring snows. It was not a bustling war camp, as he was expecting – perhaps most of the soldiers had moved on, or were regrouping in the cities. Instead, it seemed to largely comprise of three large medical tents, a supply tent, and a scattering of sleeping tents surrounding a fan of five cookfires.  
  
Yaranzo took it in gradually, scanning the smattering of faces for one that rang familiar and finding none. _More the better,_ he thought, seating himself on a dry stone along the bank of the river when his fatigue washed over him.  
  
He took the moment to catch his breath. It was difficult to say how much progress he had made in unlocking his chakra through his meditation the night previous. He had been aware of the light of the moon against his face, of the current in the river, of the insects that sang around him – but all of these were outside of his body, and surely they did not connect to any sort of internal reserve of energy that he held. If anything, he huffed a sigh, his awareness of them was surely a detriment to accessing this energy; at least, this was what he was aware of after his brief time with the monk.  
  
“ _To access the innermost paths, you must be at peace with everything that surrounds you, from the air to the grass to the fish in the sea. It is not enough simply to move through the world as part of it – you must be one with it, for it is part of you, as well.”  
  
_He thought he had gotten the hang of it at the time, though the monk had laughed and assured him that he had simply allowed himself to be calm. When he told the monk he didn’t understand, the monk had laughed again, and said, _“If it were so easy, then we would all achieve Nirvana.”  
  
_Well, he thought, kicking his legs crossed underneath him, he didn’t want to achieve Nirvana.  
  
He just wanted to access his chakra. But if he had to walk the path of Enlightenment to get there, he would try.  
  
Yaranzo shut his eyes and focused, deep inside of himself. He heard the wind rustle the leaves of a nearby copse of trees and smelt the fresh blossoms that had begun to bloom again, felt the steady ache in his side; he scolded himself briefly, tried to focus instead on the gentle in-out of his breathing, to see if he could feel the current that ran through his body.  
  
He opened his eyes and rose hours later, famished and parched, and whether he was another step closer to his chakra or not, he could not stay. So he rose weakly and made his way back to the tent.

* * *

For all that he made scarce progress with his chakra over the next few days, his physical improvement was astonishing. Saki spent less time by his bedside, but when she was nearby she fretted over his injury like a hen, swapping out bandages soaked in one ointment for another, and pressing them into his side until his entire body felt warm. He could only assume that his wound had begun to knit itself together, since she scolded him significantly less, it seemed, no matter how hard he pushed himself.  
  
And push himself he did. His short walks and scrabbles very quickly became bursts of sprinting, vaults and leaps when possible, and he found some uninjured men remaining in the camp to spar with him. Although he had been a mercenary before enlisting in the battle, he had little experience with a true katana, and felt rather more like a wandering handyman – and although he wouldn’t call his beaten up, borrowed sword a true katana, the weight in his hand as he went through forms, some flowing like water and some vicious like fire, made him feel akin to a warrior.  
  
With three days remaining until he was to leave for the Lightning Nation, he found himself in one of these bouts, a pair of borrowed hakama and his cotton yukata about his person and a bokken in hand. While some of the men had taught him forms and techniques, which he practiced diligently by moonlight, on this day he found himself facing opponents whose main technique seemed to be different variations of brute force. As his back hit the dirt for the fourth time, each previous time met with raucous applause, Yaranzo pushed himself to his feet to the sound of laughter.  
  
He dusted the hakama hastily upon seeing the crowd had stilled, searching for the interloper, and after spinning in a circle found himself face to face with a pair of grinning cat eyes and knifelike cheekbones. He bowed hastily, and Uchitaro groaned.  
  
“By all spirits, don’t start with that.” He extended an arm out, clasping Yaranzo’s in friendly greeting.  
  
In spite of Uchitaro’s familiarity, Yaranzo found himself standing very straight as he faced the crown prince. “I am training hard to ensure I am of use during our mission, Tetsumaru-sama.”  
  
“Uchitaro,” he corrected, his grin widening. “Must’ve had him on the ropes, huh?” Uchitaro turned to the opponent Yaranzo had been facing. “I’m certain he’d have yielded if you’d fallen just one more time.”  
  
There was a lightness to the crown prince’s tone, and Yaranzo knew that he was being teased, but he could not help but to take the admonishment seriously. He bowed again, this time meeting Uchitaro’s eyes as he rose. “If one falls a hundred times, there is no direction to go but up.”  
  
“Oh?” If possible, Uchitaro’s grin widened even further, and he shrugged off his haori, tossing it to one of his attendants. He extended his hand in front of him briefly and caught the bokken Yaranzo’s previous opponent tossed him, falling into a loose stance. “All right, then. Show me what _up_ looks like, samurai.”  
  
He hesitated. Although Uchitaro was certainly more skilled than he, more experienced, the challenge did not sit quite right with him. “I…” He paused, gripped the bokken tightly. “I don’t want to hurt you, Tetsumaru-sama.”  
  
A murmur had gone up about the crowd, whispers of Uchitaro’s familiarity, of Yaranzo’s own unknown background, until, one by one, wagers began to be made – three hundred on the crown prince, no, five. No challenges were placed for the awkward outsider, and the betting remained stagnant for a brief moment, until Uchitaro’s attendant called out, “Nine hundred for our visiting friend.”  
  
Yaranzo jumped at the sound, and the crowd burbled with excitement, a rush to take the bet before the man came to sense. He could not understand what had possessed the man to make such a stake – he had never spoken to him, and not only was his character unknown, but his fighting ability had very much been on display. But when he caught Uchitaro’s eye, he saw a glimmer there, that grin still firmly affixed, and something in it caused him to nod somewhat, shuffling his feet into his own stance.  
  
Uchitaro allowed him a moment to gain his bearings before moving, perhaps out of politesse or out of the realization that Yaranzo’s own sense of modesty would not allow him to strike first; he took a large stride forward, bringing the bokken down in a smooth arc towards the pate of Yaranzo’s head. The motion, while smooth, was not something that Yaranzo would dare to call aggressive, or even fast, and he blocked easily. Even the shuddering sensation that travelled down his arms wasn’t jarring or painful.  
  
A test, then.  
  
The crowd seemed to notice this, and a jeer rose from a portion of the semicircle around them, calling him an invalid, a child, and worse. Uchitaro took a step back, settling into his original stance right down to the folds of his sleeves. A static fell, Uchitaro allowing him another moment to collect himself, and Yaranzo scowled.  
  
He did not allow the prince the opportunity to make the first move again; he leapt to the prince’s off side, sweeping the bokken horizontally from his shoulder. There was a pull from his wound, stretching at the force of the swing, which he ignored; if he could get one powerful strike in early, the match would be over.  
  
With movement much faster than Uchitaro had displayed before, he ducked beneath the swing and stepped in with another great stride, and then a further step to place himself behind Yaranzo, and the ache from his wound was joined by the sting of the flatside of Uchitaro’s bokken across his buttocks.  
  
A great howl erupted from the crowd, more jeers and some applause; Uchitaro crowed the minor victory a bit, ramping the onlookers up before he turned back to Yaranzo, falling into his stance fluidly again.  
  
For all of the meditating he had been doing over the last several days, a flurry of emotions flooded him. It was more than just the humiliation of being outperformed in front of a group of men, of soldiers to boot, but there was a deeper shame that took root: this was the man who was going to be counting on him for his wellbeing. A man he had already saved once, and whose protection was now his duty. If he would so easily allow himself to be bested by his charge, then what good as a warrior was he?  
  
What good as a samurai?  
  
He took his stance again – wider this time, more solid, paying more attention to where his weight lie – and took a breath to clear the thoughts from his head. He could not allow them to overwhelm him, he still had to focus. Uchitaro, who again courteously waited for his opponent to situate himself, canted his head curiously, apparently sensing the change. A beat, then the grin returned to his features.  
  
There was a pause while the two considered each other, punctuated by remnant snickers from the audience, which had grown in size. Yaranzo forced himself to ignore them, to focus, just as he had forced himself to ignore the pounding in his heart during the battle, to focus on nothing but the opponent in front of him and not to worry about the frenzy that had surrounded. He breathed in once, adjusting his grip on the bokken as a veteran had shown him yesterday, shifting the sword into a different posture nearer his chest.  
  
“Going on the defensive?” Uchitaro taunted, adjusting the position of his bokken in response. “Are you scared I’ll have you on your back soon, my friend?”  
  
Uchitaro gave him no time to respond, launching forward swiftly to strike; if Yaranzo had not spent so much time over the last few days being attacked, he may have missed it. But something had shifted within him once he had forced the shame down and cleared his head, and he saw through the filter of battle. His surroundings had slowed, blurred into only the focus directly before him, and when the prince adjusted his stance to counter Yaranzo’s, he found he recognized the intent, found he could see a glimmer of the movement the prince was going to make just behind his eyelids.  
  
The point of the blade neared his chest and Yaranzo swatted his bokken, sliding the wooden blades together and stepping in closer to Uchitaro’s body to parry.  
  
The strike did not hit its target, as Uchitaro swiveled out of the way at the last moment, bringing his blade with him with the centrifugal force; Yaranzo jolted backward, raising his bokken vertically to block.  
  
The two did not take the time to reposition themselves into a tranquil stance, the hot blood of battle, even one simulated, fully upon them; Uchitaro brought his off hand to the base of the hilt, raising the bokken to strike at his opponent’s pate again, and Yaranzo let him, once more stepping in close and, out of instinct, he raised his arm over Uchitaro’s bokken mid-strike to pin the wooden blade against his side, a mirror of the move he had become so familiar with on the battlefield, finished by a brief jerk to bring the bokken to the ground with a clatter.  
  
Rather than bringing the blade of his bokken to the prince’s midsection for the final blow, however, he took another step into Uchitaro’s body, reaching up to grab the nape of his opponent’s hair firmly in his fist with his off-hand as he brought the tip of the bokken’s blade to the prince’s throat.  
  
Silence settled with the dust of the field, the crowd watching in shock as the awkward wanderer and the crown prince of the Land of Iron stood locked together, their faces inches apart, and the hot breath of their panting forming a halo of steaming clouds about them. Finally, after a moment, Uchitaro barked a laugh in Yaranzo’s face, his hands coming together in between their bodies to clap.  
  
With this simple movement, the tension in the crowd ruptured; cries of disbelief and wonderment, the scoff of Uchitaro’s attendant as he moved to collect his money, calls for a rematch, and scattered cheers for the victor.  
  
Just before Yaranzo thought to release him, Uchitaro brought a hand up to clap the nape of Yaranzo’s neck, tapping their foreheads together briefly. “I’m relieved to see you won’t die immediately in my service – it would be a shame to lose you so soon.”  
  
They stepped back simultaneously, regarding one another for a moment, the same catlike grin settling onto Uchitaro’s features; finally, Yaranzo allowed himself to grin back at him. “I wouldn’t dream of failing you, my lord,” he responded, bowing, the bokken held in a loose grip at his side.  
  
Uchitaro groaned dramatically at the honorific, cringing away physically, before laughing. He said nothing in response, though, as his attendant made his presence known, leaning in to murmur something into the crown prince’s ear. He nodded, tapping the man’s shoulder twice, before shooting a two-fingered wave at Yaranzo. “I will see you again soon before we leave for Lightning, my friend – wait for me!”

* * *

Though Saki had been frustrated with him throughout the week for continuing to batter himself, she still returned to the tent to tend to him. Since he had begun to move around more freely, she no longer brought him meals, allowing him the freedom to fend for himself and to form bonds with some of the soldiers he had served with as he made use of, and helped around, the camp’s cookfires. She did, however, insist on bringing him a mug of twig tea in the morning as he woke, and in the evening when he returned from his skirmishes, bruised and smiling abashedly.  
  
Her complaints began to lose their bite after his bout with Uchitaro, of which she heard news before he returned to the tent that night. She had scolded him by rote, but it contained none of the heat it usually did, he knew as she helped him strip from the dingy karuta and checked the bandage on his side.  
  
Two days after the fight, Uchitaro indeed came by to visit, as he had promised: he had found Yaranzo at his usual spot, meditating in search of his chakra by the riverside, and the two had walked back to Yaranzo’s camp cot. Uchitaro had laughed at him when Yaranzo admitted it was from Baiganemaru’s influence that he was even attempting the process, informing Yaranzo that the daimyo had learned through years of rigorous training against foes much stronger than anyone currently living in the Land of Iron.  
  
Deflating only somewhat at this, Yaranzo declared, “I will master my chakra if it takes me to the ends of this earth.”  
  
Uchitaro’s usual grin took on a quality that Yaranzo could not identify as he responded, “I’d like to be there to see that.” As they neared the tent, Uchitaro jogged ahead a bit, pushing the flap aside with his forearm. “If you’re to do that, though, I think you might need a better set of armor, don’t you?”  
  
The high afternoon light blinded him momentarily as Yaranzo stepped into the tent to find the dark silhouette of yoroi armor, dazzled by the fine kit as his eyes adjusted. The scales had been lacquered to a fine dove grey, a delicate wheat motif gilted along the edges. He turned to face the expectant Uchitaro, who burst into laughter at his silence.  
  
“You’d better close your mouth, my friend, fish cannot breathe on land!” he made out in between cackles.  
  
Yaranzo shut his jaw with a snap, casting a glance back at the armor, reaching to trace the lacing of the cuirass with a hesitant finger before jerking back. “I cannot possibly accept – “  
  
“Maa, it isn’t a gift or anything,” Uchitaro cut him off with a wave, crossing his arms into the sleeves of his haori. “You paid for it fair and square.”  
  
“I – what? How?”  
  
Uchitaro winked, flashing that knifelike grin. “Nine hundred, right? The set itself was closer to seven after haggling, so the blade isn’t so nice, but you can’t very well be a samurai in that.” He flicked the old karuta disdainfully with his foot from where it poked out of the chest. “This is a real mission we’re going on, and you need to be properly equipped. I knew a country boy like you wouldn’t know a proper set of scales from his ass, so my man fetched it for me.”  
  
His fingers reached out once more, drifting over the mentioned scales gently, awestruck. “I – “  
  
“I was never gonna allow my man to keep that money – I pay him more than enough, and anyway – oh geeze, don’t – don’t do that.” He grimaced as Yaranzo prostrated himself at his feet, pressing his forehead to the ground.  
  
He had begun to learn more about Uchitaro as time had passed, about the responsibility he carried as the first son of the daimyo – and especially as the first son of a daimyo who was in the middle of a coup. Yaranzo had known that at some point their different upbringings would come to light, and that he would have to make compensations for his lack of experience, his lack of background; that it would happen so early did not necessarily come as a surprise to him, but he had hoped that the spirits would have allowed him more time to impress the noble family of his own accord.  
  
More than ever, for what they had only just begun to do for him, he would dedicate himself to this family’s service. And although he knew Uchitaro was not in particular fond of his title, it bore remembering.  
  
“You must accept my deepest thanks, Tetsumaru-sama, for this most gracious gift. I will bear it in your name, and I pray that it will allow me to serve you well.” It wasn’t a formal pledge, for he did not know the proper ceremony for that, but he could only hope that it would convey the breadth of his emotions.  
  
Uchitaro shifted his weight awkwardly, ushering Yaranzo back to his feet with a, “Maa, maa,” before his attendant came to fetch him. He flashed a short two-fingered wave once more, disappearing from the tent in the rustle of his silk haori.  
  
Saki found him that evening, seated cross-legged on his cot, admiring the oyoroi. She placed the mug of twig tea on his bedside table, seating herself next to him to marvel at the beautiful craftwork. She whistled finally, reaching to grab the twig tea to hand it to him. “What sort of debt must you have gone into for that?” she mused aloud.  
  
Yaranzo opened his mouth to correct her, but found he couldn’t find the right words. Instead, he simply said, “It was a gift,” before taking a sip of the tea.  
  
“Some gift.” She cast an eye over the giltwork, canting her head a bit. There was a moment’s pause, then; “It is a set of armor fit for a samurai.”  
  
Yaranzo grinned over his shoulder at her. “I hope to earn it very soon.” He did not feel quite right to call himself a proper samurai just yet – it was one thing to understand and speak the ideals, but to live them? To be an example, to be a warrior that others, and himself, could be proud of? He had not worked quite hard enough for that yet.  
  
She smiled back at him, softly, and tapped him gently on the shoulder. “Well, no self-respecting samurai is going to go around with hair like this.” She flicked a stray lock of his shaggy white hair with a finger, scooting from the cot to stand. “Stay still.”  
  
Immediately, Yaranzo lifted a hand to his thick mane self-consciously. He knew the image he projected, and it was not one of refinement; he had not been raised in a rich household, and when his father had needed to get his hair from his face he simply tugged it back into a low knot at the base of his neck. As he had grown and set out on his own, Yaranzo had emulated this for ease, and for lack of knowing how to create a proper chonmage.  
  
Saki swatted at his hand, pressing down on his shoulders to move his body more central to hers as she positioned herself behind him. “I said stay still. I’ll be lucky enough if I can get this comb through all of this hair.”  
  
The words were harsh, but the tone was teasing; Yaranzo forced himself to relax, taking another sip of twig tea. Saki was not entirely joking about his hair, though, and the first couple of passes with the comb were rough, accidentally causing him to yelp; but as she began to gain control of the hair, the ministrations lulled him into a trance.  
  
Time slowed like syrup around them. Saki was silent as she worked, careful in her ministrations as she worked free the many tangles. Her fingers worked through the strands of his hair, fingernails grazing against his scalp, tugging the locks into place as she twisted some here, braided some there. Slowly, she gathered the sections together, twisting upward, tucking jagged ends underneath smoother sections, until finally she slipped a thin leather thong around the pile of hair, tugging everything secure with a neat knot.  
  
Her hands remained lightly on his shoulders; he could not see the result of her handiwork, but he trusted her implicitly when she murmured, “There. Now you look like you are the man that armor belongs to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had wanted to get a little further ahead before I posted another chapter, but I figure a two-chapter headstart isn't too bad. Thank you to everyone who read, and big thanks to 2ilver8ox, 5_Stirling_Heartstrings, and the guest who left me kudos on this; additionally, 5_Stirling_Hearstrings for the awesome first comment! I literally did not even realize that this fic is basically a bunch of buddy road trips, and honestly, it's what Sakumo deserves.
> 
> We're still getting some backstory out of the way before we get into the meat of it and he becomes the man we know, but hopefully everyone enjoys! I certainly had fun writing it.


	3. Chapter 3

Yaranzo had been in few enough true battles, and in his village it was uncommon for a child to read the stories from the scrolls that more cosmopolitan children would have had access to, and although he considered the area around the Three Wolves to be his home, he had never summited a peak and felt the fresh mountain air hit his lungs.  
  
But even knowing these things, he felt confident in the feeling that there was nothing in his life that could have prepared him for being in the Land of Lightning.  
  
Their journey had progressed in much the way that Saki had predicted: the daimyo had provided them with horses which brought them quite near to the border, at which point they dismounted and traded out the horses at the only available outpost for the draft horses popular in the area. The dark-skinned man and his family had alternated marveling and snickering at the comparatively slim, fleet beasts, but the coin assured Uchitaro that his father’s horses would be well cared for.  
  
Those first days on the road were not a difficult transition to make, all things considered: he grew used to the weight of his new oyoroi well enough, and offered to do more camp duties than his share for the chance to move about in it. Since the rest of the party was quite eager to take advantage of his apparent magnanimity, they did not have the opportunity to tease him for his saddle stiffness, and the brunt of his fatigue hit him in the mornings once he mounted again. It was perhaps that he was always on the brink of exhaustion that he found meditating quite a good deal easier than in the encampment, but to his chagrin he felt no closer to tapping into his chakra reserves than he did before.  
  
It was when the trek became markedly more vertical, and the horses were left at another outpost, when Yaranzo truly began to understand what made Kumogakure impenetrable. He could not have said for certain if it was simply that he had overworked himself, or if the soreness of his muscles was truly to blame, but he suspected not: every step that he took further up the mountain paths was drowned out by the sounds of him attempting to suppress his gasps for air.  
  
Among the particular party for this mission, he was the youngest, at sixteen, and certainly the least experienced. Even Uchitaro, the daimyo’s own kin, was two years his senior and had served as part of his father’s forces for several years; the remaining men in the squad were seasoned veterans, hardy and calculating men who were staring down their fortieth years.  
  
To a man, all of them kept a blank face and spoke little to one another, a troupe of true samurai. Even still, in his self-consciousness Yaranzo glanced around at these men and found himself comforted by the strain in their red faces, and the slight whistle in their reedy breaths.  
  
He became more cheered when Uchitaro himself broke the stoic façade by leaning forward, bracing his hands on his knees heavily. “Maa,” he complained with a puff. “If the whole forsaken country is this way, perhaps we can just leave the shogun to his own devices – maybe we’ve gotten lucky and he’s already suffocated, or fallen from a precipice.”  
  
One of the other samurai, a staid man called Tadanobu, frowned. He bowed slightly before he spoke; “Tetsumaru-sama, we cannot allow Yoshinaka-dono to make contact with the shinobi. The Cloud shinobi are honorless men, and he is sure to seek their help in revenge against O-Baiganemaru-sama. We must find him to bring him back to the Land of Iron.”  
  
Uchitaro waved a hand, apparently much used to the rebukes. “If the Cloud shinobi are so honorless, then they have nothing to gain from helping the shogun regain his position in our country. He’s got no money,” he pointed out, straightening before arcing his back in an exaggerated stretch.  
  
The valley between Tadanobu’s brow deepened. “Tetsumaru-sama – “  
  
“Maa, I hear you, I hear you.” He waved his hand again, slinging a friendly arm over the old man’s neck. “You don’t have to tell me twice, Tadanobu-san. We’ll continue on. Maybe we can simply make camp soon.”  
  
“Tetsumaru-sama, it is the middle of the afternoon – if we don’t press on, Yoshinaka-dono will – “  
  
“But surely we should rest for a few moments,” another man, Sanada, broke in, a wry smile on his lips. As if to emphasize his point, he slipped the katana and tanto from his belt and seated himself on a boulder along the side of the mountain path.  
  
“That’s the spirit!” Uchitaro quickly followed suit, allowing himself to fall backward into a seat on the ground, gesturing for Yaranzo and the remainder of the party to do the same. Begrudgingly, Tadanobu relented, kneeling nearby to Uchitaro, his eyes bright with his reluctance, sharply assessing the area.  
  
Sanada laughed at him. “I do not think you will be able to see Yoshinaka-sama for the clouds, Tadanobu-san.”  
  
The scowl on Tadanobu’s face intensified, but he turned to face his comrade only for the barest moment. “If even one person is watching the unseeable, then but for a moment it can be seen – and it takes but a split second to turn the tide of a battle, child,” he snapped.  
  
“' _Child_?” Sanada laughed again. “I’m sure it must feel that way to someone as venerated as you, Tadanobu-san, but we are all just skilled.”  
  
They sniped back and forth at each other then, as they had been doing increasingly as the altitude grew. As the rest of the party ignored them and took their moment’s rest, Yaranzo stepped off to the side of the mountain path, picking his way to the edge of the cliff face to take in the beginnings of the valley.  
  
It was easy to understand why it was said the dead called the highest mountain peaks their homes: down below, he could just make out the wending snake of the river they had collected their water from, and the clouds curled heavy and ethereal all about the crags of the mountains faces about him. The foliage was scrub and hardy trees up here, but the flowers that bloomed were of the brightest varieties he had ever seen, and now that he had caught his breath he found himself experiencing a kind of euphoria, indistinguishable from the lightheadedness that had been his constant companion since they set foot in this territory but an entirely disparate sensation.  
  
His heart still hammered in his chest, and a blaze seeped along his entire body – especially out from his wound, throbbing incessantly – but these were secondary to the sharp clarity that he felt when he looked around. Yaranzo breathed in once, slowly, through his nose, and let the breath come out in a soft sigh, a feeling of pleasure escaping his body that he had not yet in his young life experienced.  
  
By the time he forced himself back to where the others were, the decision had been made to, in fact, make camp for the time being. Tadanobu, to his credit, kept his face a mask that only scarcely belied his irritation; he appeared to be trying to make the best of the situation, poring over maps that they had from the daimyo’s archives and that they had bought from the previous rest stops. There were some discrepancies, as one might expect since the information that the Land of Iron had on shinobi territory was deliberately kept out of date. Perhaps more bafflingly, however, was the Cloud shinobi’s paranoia against their own, as the differences in the two maps they had purchased inside of the Land of Lightning were much more marked and deliberate than those compared to the raggedy old parchment they had been provided before setting out.  
  
Far from being discouraged, Sanada pointed out that they could easily bridge this gap by making corrections as they went along, effectively making a map of their own. As if in demonstration, he grabbed a smoldering twig from their tiny campfire and extinguished it, blowing on the ember briefly to cool it to a charcoal nub before grabbing one of the maps from the most recent outpost and sketching a rough outline of their path.  
  
Tadanobu remained visibly frustrated, but for once could not find the words to fault his comrade, and remained silent but to offer curt corrections.  
  
The remainder of the party once again left the two to their own devices, moving about the space to set up a small camp. Because they were quite deep into enemy territory, they needed to ensure they left no trace of themselves, and to ensure that the encampment was just on the right side of functional. They could not afford to alert suspicion, either from the shogun’s party or from the shinobi themselves. Before they had left the Land of Iron, the daimyo had taken his son aside and briefed him on how best to interact with the Cloud Shinobi; Uchitaro had taken his duty as leader of the party incredibly seriously, and had not shared the contents of that meeting with anyone, even a decorated veteran such as Tadanobu.  
  
For the time being, though, this meant that when Yaranzo went around and offered help, as he had done the entire journey to the mountains, he was rebuffed with polite smiles and quiet laughs, pointed reminders that even though he was the newcomer he did not have to carry the weight of the entire party.  
  
He paused only for a moment to check, to double check, before shedding the extra weight of his oyoroi and making his way back to the cliff-face he had found earlier. During the journey to the Land of Lightning, he had continued his attempts at meditating to find his chakra release, and although he felt significantly more at peace in a general sense, he would not have counted the practice as successful just yet.  
  
Weaving his way through the mini-camp, expertly maneuvering around his fellows, he swiveled on his heel to turn off the path he remembered from before, jerking to the side last minute to avoid a collision with a familiar knife-like smile.  
  
The bow arced his back out of instinct. “Tetsumaru-sama,” he greeted unnecessarily, ignoring the groan of exasperation from the other man. “The encampment seems well in hand – by your leave, I would like to step off to meditate.”  
  
He could not have said what caused him to revert back to such stringent formality – during the march, and the encounters in the previous encampment when they had both been injured, he had begun to feel more than an obligation to the crown prince, a genuine bond with the young man Uchitaro. But whenever it was he was faced with the scrutiny of those sharp slanted eyes, he felt his spine straighten and his tone stiffen, the weight of responsibility and tradition bearing down upon him.  
  
Uchitaro, for his part, made his feelings clear; he cocked a brow and huffed a sigh, clapping Yaranzo on the shoulder. “My friend, you don’t need my leave. Everyone here knows you’ve done more than your share. I imagine they jumped on it to deprive you the chance.” There was mirth in his tone, as though he truly believed this were so, and Yaranzo paused, halfway into a grimace that was part scowl, part smile.  
  
Steering him closer to the copse of reedy mountain scrub, Uchitaro plopped down onto the ground and beckoned for Yaranzo to follow suit. “Is that what you’ve been doing when you have the time? Meditating? Suddenly taken an interest in the gods, have you?”  
  
Yaranzo forced an awkward chuckle at the thought. “Hardly,” he responded; then, seeming to think better of it, in light of their location, he waved his hands in front of him frantically. “I mean! The gods deserve their due, but I don’t think they’re going to benefit from me meditating. No, I – “ He paused, bringing himself short, before finally deciding that there was no better way than to be direct; “I’ve been trying to access my chakra. Ever since you told me about it, and then your father, and his energy was just so – _whoof_ – “  
  
Uchitaro cut him off with a bright guffaw that shook his shoulders and threw his head back. “My father! Yes, he does have some mastery over his chakra, and he’s very proud of it.” Leaning forward conspiratorily, he looked around before whispering, “He doesn’t have as fine control over it as everyone thinks, though. Don’t tell anyone,” he added, falling back onto his haunches.  
  
“Wha – O-Baiganemaru-sama – doesn’t - ?”  
  
Delighted and amused, Uchitaro waved a hand in front of his face. “He’s got some, don’t get me wrong, he can perform some techniques with a degree of accuracy – among samurai, he’s probably got the most forceful chakra, but as far as control? He can’t channel it into a blade, for example.”  
  
Whatever Uchitaro had meant to convey with this information, it sent Yaranzo reeling. For it having been his only experience with the concept, the daimyo’s chakra was impressive, chilling him to his core – but to hear that this immensely heavy force was still not among the upper echelons of chakra users shook Yaranzo, sinking his hopes under a heavy anchor of disappointment.  
  
“Hey?” Uchitaro leaned forward once more, scrutinizing Yaranzo’s face closely. “What’s that face for? Surely my father isn’t that impressive? He’s not your idol or anything, is he?”  
  
“No, it’s merely…if even the daimyo’s control is lacking, what hope have I?”  
  
“ _Pfah_!” Uchitaro scoffed, tucking his legs beneath him. “Everyone’s release is different, you just have to get there. My old man has a unique chakra signature, but so does every chakra user – once you develop yours, it’ll be just as powerful. Here, look.”  
  
Closing his eyes, he allowed the backs of his hands to rest gently on his knees. There was a moment of intense stillness, then, before a brief flurry of mountain air lifted crisp dregs of scrubgrass from the ground; it danced in the whirlwind for a second, drifting about Uchitaro’s legs, before being pulled to one of his gently cocked fingers. It stuck there for a moment, not heeding the beckoning wind anymore, before it crackled with violent energy and singed, drifting back to the ground as dust.  
  
When his eyes fluttered open again, there was a brief halo of light around the irises, which faded in time with his exaggerated groan. He rubbed the back of his neck a mite sheepishly. “I don’t practice much, but you get the idea.”  
  
Yaranzo did not, and he was unafraid to say so. After the demonstration left him in deeper awe of the daimyo’s family, he resolved that something he was doing during his meditation was incorrect, and he begged Uchitaro to help guide him to the secret.  
  
And the prince was happy to oblige. A natural storyteller but a poor demonstrator, Uchitaro launched into a much more detailed description of the forces at play than that night in the medical tent – he explained the emotional content, the great balance that was required for proper chakra use, the dire consequence of poor regulation. He fluctuated in his speech between rote academic, experienced warrior, and unscholarly teenager, gesturing to get his point across – and, when that failed, he pressed firmly on sections of Yaranzo’s body with the pads of his fingers.  
  
When he finished his impromptu lecture, he paused, the cast of his eyes taking on a dubious slant as he squinted at the other man. “I dunno if that helps. We’re taught the basics, my brothers and I – and my sister will be, when she comes of age – but none of us are particularly skilled at it.”  
  
Yaranzo’s head spun from the influx of information, and he looked at the crown prince with stars in his eyes. “I’m sure it will be more than helpful, once I put it into practice. You have my gratitude Tetsumaru-sa – Uchitaro-sama.” He resisted the urge to press his weight into his fingertips to bow.  
  
Uchitaro’s eyes narrowed further at the title, and he grinned, ultimately excusing the slip-up into formality. “Well, let’s practice, then! We have plenty of time, since we’ve made camp – and sun’s about to go down, and that’s when many of the spirits of the mountain awaken.”  
  
Crossing his legs beneath him to get into his comfortable posture, Yaranzo glanced upward at the setting sun. “Is that true?”  
  
A shrug. “Must be. Read it somewhere.”  
  
They practiced in this way well into the night, in fits and spurts and with excited interludes when one found a modicum of improvement, pushing the other on the shoulder to snap him out of his reverie and relay and demonstrate the success breathlessly. While ultimately detrimental to their progress, they still found it necessary, and were just as bright-eyed the final time as they had been the first.  
  
When the moon reached its zenith, far brighter than either man had ever seen it before, they realized the true danger of practicing with one’s chakra: exhaustion. It took the two of them, supported by the other and holding on for dear life, walking in tandem before they managed to successfully make it down the short path to the makeshift encampment.  
  
Yaranzo deposited Uchitaro just outside of his tent, amused when he heard a _thump_ and the immediate snores as the prince just barely made it to his bedroll. How he managed the journey to his own bedroll, then, was a mystery to him.  
  
Nevertheless, when he opened his eyes in the morning, it was at the greeting of a too-bright mountain sun, his back comfortably pressed against the quilting of his bedroll. Still exhausted beyond reason from the apparent effort of using his chakra (was that what had happened? he liked to think so) the night before, he managed simply to don his oyoroi and to gather his belongings into his pack before the party set out once again up the mountain path.  
  
They continued in this way for several short days: they had managed to ascend above the clouds, a feat Yaranzo had never imagined was possible. But as they continued to climb, their movements grew more and more sluggish until Uchitaro’s original, if joking, suggestion of allowing the shogun to stay in the mountains was a common grumble. None dared to say it aloud, certainly, but even along the stoic planes of the men’s faces, the discontent was apparent.  
  
Yaranzo, for his part, could not notice the difference. In truth, he had been exhausting himself so thoroughly since his miraculous second chance at life that he wasn’t sure what it felt like to be rested, collected, his energy at its peak. He did not say so, tactfully, but the tacit implication that he was satisfied with the progress of the mission so far succeeded in shaming many of the more vocally unhappy veterans.  
  
If this boy remained so unbothered, and in the face of the crown prince, how could they possibly complain?  
  
Still, the practice of setting up camp began to slide back earlier and earlier into the day; these extended periods of rest and idleness, combined with the increasing sap of energy due to the altitude, brought a strain to their supplies. While it was true there was plenty of mountain fauna to be hunted, and there was snowmelt to drink, it seemed as though these things only brought more frustration to the group as a whole, until even the friendliest among them grew surly.  
  
Yaranzo had gone without food before, and he had pushed through the barriers of exhaustion simply from his upbringing, but never had he been so thirsty in his life. His evening meditations with Uchitaro became tense, both of them taut as bowstrings, knuckles white in the folds of their hakama. It had only taken one close call where Yaranzo had almost snapped at the crown prince, and Uchitaro must have sensed it, for they came to the understanding that perhaps it was best to remain silent in each other’s presence.  
  
The same could not be said for the rest of the party, though, in particular Sanada and Tadanobu. Where before they had sniped at each other, goading and egging the other on but with an undercurrent of camaraderie, their hostility echoed into the open air every time one began to bear down on the other’s throat. The line between friends and enemies was already a blurry one for the two men, and now it was almost indistinguishable.  
  
“I am _telling_ you, Tadanobu-san, that it would make better sense to head back _down_ this mountain path and move laterally to another, more central path along the main roads.” To emphasize his point, Sanada pointed roughly at the now-fraying map.  
  
Tadanobu ground his teeth so tightly Yaranzo thought he could hear that as well. “And _I_ am telling _you_ , _Sanada-kun_ , that we must continue along the side roads and focus on proper tracking technique to find our quarry before Yoshinaka-dono escapes into the clouds for good.”  
  
A short growl, followed by a loud, deliberate sigh. The tone of Sanada’s voice was pleasant on the surface, but it shook from the tension of his friendly façade. “I know you are dead-set against allying with the shinobi on this, Tadanobu-san, but it is an indisputable fact that they are better trackers than we by far, and if they have heard news – “  
  
“We will not indebt ourselves to those barbarians!”  
  
“Barbarians, he says, when he cannot even keep his voice down, nee Kinkaku?”  
  
“Noisy samurai need to learn that silence is golden, Ginkaku.”  
  
The voices seeped out from the shadows, thick with laughter and an accent that Yaranzo had never heard before. The sound of them had every man in the party on his feet, looking around wildly – many had already stripped from their armor, their weapons frighteningly far away, and the tension pulled everyone rigid. Eyes scanned the rocks about them, but for the blinding gleam of the setting sun against the clouds, the intruders could not be found.  
  
As with everyone else near the campfire, Yaranzo rose instantly, stepping forward in the hope that he could separate whatever foreign threat there was from Uchitaro. He just wished he could see where they _were_.

And then, suddenly, they were not hiding any longer, the weight of their immense chakra suffocating him far worse than the altitude, pushing him down, his knees buckling. Their laughter echoed around the rocks once more, unnervingly loud, and as it diffused into the air he found he could see them.  
  
Yaranzo had never seen a shinobi before, but he could not say that this was what he expected. More than just the chakra they exuded, the shinobi were _huge_. Aside of the sheer crush of their pure energy, they were mirror images of broad shoulders bearing white flak vests, wild mist- and wheat-colored manes, and thick arms corded with muscle, biceps branded with the first characters of their names.  
  
The shinobi knew what they were doing: they did not step into the campground proper, continuing to hover in the periphery, allowing the firelight and the setting sun to cast their features in a harsh and ethereal light. While there was no longer any chuckling coming from them, the ghastly grins firmly reminded the samurai that they were still being thoroughly mocked. The way the shadows shifted about their bodies, it seemed as though they were walking on the very air.  
  
Yaranzo could not be sure, but it seemed as though the immense weight of their energy was still not a fraction of their power. He cast a desperate glance at the faces of his comrades, hoping to glean some semblance of unity, of a plan being formed, and he realized that he was not the only one being affected by this incredible power; even stout Tadanobu had gained a fine shimmer of sweat about his neck, and the calm confidence of Sanada was crumbling, his jaw clenched tightly as he glowered at the darkness.  
  
In his time fighting and traveling with the samurai, Yaranzo had heard the veterans talk amongst themselves and there was a tension that hovered about them, delicate in the air like shards of glass. When he had asked, the more patient of the troupe had told him about the nebulous concept of ‘ _the heart of a sword’;_ “ _It is like a swordsman’s barrier, which no man can enter without permission_.”  
  
He had thought at the time that it was similar to the chakra release that he was chasing, but as he looked around desperately to his comrades he could feel the hearts of their swords resonating about them, pushing up uselessly against the enormity of the enemy’s chakra.  
  
Like toy swords against the waves of the ocean.  
  
He did not want to drown, he realized. After the Battle of the Wolves, he had thought that he came to terms with his life: he had experienced the thrill of battle, the rush of adrenaline that came with staring a man in the eyes and emerging victorious, something akin to duty. He had accepted that it was perhaps his time to pass, and that he had done everything he needed to do in this life. But now that he had spent so much time under Saki’s care, travelling and training and talking with these fine warriors, and spending his evenings joking and laughing and meditating with Uchitaro, he felt deep in his heart that he was not ready.  
  
But he could not fail these people.  
  
The tension around the campsite crackled so violently Yaranzo thought he could see sparks; it strained against every man as they waited for the shinobi to move, seeking opportunities to reach their weapons. Yaranzo was much too far away – no matter what he did, he would never be fast enough to reach the katana at his bedroll. There was a dry scrape behind him as Uchitaro finally shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, and Yaranzo realized that the prince still had his wakizashi at his hip. He could not pretend that he was a more skilled warrior than Uchitaro, but it was his duty to protect him, and by all spirits he would do that.  
  
There was a great crack in the air as someone moved first – Yaranzo whipped his head back around, but he could not see who it was. It didn’t matter in the end: as he thought, the shinobi were in a different class, and the bodies of two of his comrades hit the dirt in the seconds that it took for others to arm themselves.  
  
Tadanobu released a great strangled cry, drowned out by the heavy metallic scrape of katana meeting kunai. Tadanobu pushed against his foe, straining with all his might to push his heart of sword out to restrain the enemy, but the wheat-haired shinobi towered over him, smirking and languid, bearing down on the samurai looking for all the world as though he were selecting fruit at a market. His other arm was extended at his side, another of Yaranzo’s comrades dangling from his grip. He looked entirely unbothered, relaxed, even.  
  
“Nee, Ginkaku, I think these children are playing at samurai,” he drawled without looking at his partner, who had his foot on Sanada’s neck.  
  
The mist-haired shinobi leaned his weight forward, putting his face close to Sanara’s, the snarl in his grin a mirror of Sanada’s grimace. “I think they are, Kinkaku! Do you think they compare to the noisy babes that stomped through this valley just recently?”  
  
The smile on Kinkaku’s face turned cruel as he paused to consider for a moment, turning to face the man in his grip before tightening his hold; the samurai grunted, his fingers scrabbling against the insurmountable grip, the bottoms of his waraji scraping uselessly against the dirt of the mountain path.  
  
“Well,” he finally said, “they’re certainly going to die faster.”  
  
Several things happened at once then, so quickly that Yaranzo could only pick out fractured pieces. He heard Uchitaro shift behind him once more, the barest flutter of his hakama in the mountain wind; he saw Tadanobu change his grip on the katana, beginning to slide the blade out for a swing from below; he saw both shinobi for only a moment before they flickered, the wheat-haired man tossing the man in his grip like a doll before swinging his arm, now covered in a sinister glow, down to meet Tadanobu’s strike; and he felt more than anything the mist-haired man appear before him, the kunai in his hand glittering down.  
  
He could not take the time to think, but his instinct moved for him, shoving Uchitaro back down behind him at the same time as ripping the wakizashi from its scabbard, swiping it to meet the kunai in a great gnash of metal.  
  
Both shinobi seemed terribly amused by the effort the samurai were putting up, chuckles coming up from low points in their bellies before escaping in throaty sounds that floated through the air dangerously.  
  
The effort of keeping the knife from himself, from Uchitaro, was tremendous – he felt his muscles screaming under his skin, thread by thread beginning to tear under the much larger man’s strength. More than the physical force, Yaranzo felt the chakra rippling around the shinobi. It stopped up his throat and made him gag, so sickly overwhelming.  
  
He could not hold on much longer, at this rate – his body would fail him if his spirit did not first. Aghast, his eyes flickered to Tadanobu, and he was distressed to see the older man bleeding heavily from his neck, the light fading from his eyes as he watched the wheat-haired shinobi make short work of several of their teammates. Yaranzo felt that diminishing light hit him in the pit of his stomach, and he felt his own fire sputter. Frustrated tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, helpless in the face of this opponent that outclassed him so significantly, furious at himself for failing to protect Uchitaro.  
  
He felt his spirit take over, that fury channeled into his veins as he put the last of his energy into that guttering inner flame, bellowing it into a weak roar. His arms trembled at the effort, and he thought he imagined seeing his limbs glimmer with the barest of light. The sword shook in his grip, vibrating with the brightness he felt from his furious inner-fire until the blade shattered in his grip, shrapnel shearing at his cheeks and streaking along his opponent’s face as well.  
  
He was horrified to feel the blood streak down his face like tears while his opponent’s face knit itself back together before his very eyes.  
  
The shinobi laughed, intensely amused at this, and pushed down with his chakra that much more, the knife streaking through the air to stick in Yaranzo’s shoulder. “Nee Kinkaku!” he called to his partner. “This little pup has bite – I think he’s fighting harder than that pompous, dressed up old lizard.”  
  
A throaty snort, dripping disdain. “ _’I am the shogun of the Land of Iron’_ ,” he mocked, his pitch rising. “As if his meaningless title meant anything in the face of the legendary Gold and Silver Brothers.”  
  
Uchitaro shifted upright once more, his tone razor sharp. “You’ve seen Yoshinaka?” he demanded.  
  
“Oh?” Both sets of eyes locked onto the crown prince, and the mist-haired man ignored that his knife was still in Yaranzo while he focused on Uchitaro. “Don’t tell me you’ve come for vengeance, little one?”  
  
“Not at all.” A steel entered into Uchitaro’s voice then, and he tucked his feet underneath him once more. Yaranzo’s eyes fluttered over to his master, and he saw the prince’s spine straighten and his features harden, and he knew that he was looking at Tetsumaru, Crown Prince and Heir to the Land of Iron now. “We’ve come to capture him for treason, and we will take him back to the Land of Iron to answer to the people he has harmed.”  
  
From inside his haori, Tetsumaru pulled a fine brocaded bag, setting it heavily on the ground before him so that the coins inside jangled with purpose. He lifted his catlike eyes, glinting in the firelight. “If you have him in your possession, then I will negotiate for his release – but we will not enter into discussions in bad faith, shinobi.”  
  
Everything stalled about them, somehow the air about them more tense than the collision of chakra versus the hearts of their swords. Tetsumaru did not waver, leveling his grey-eyes on the foe, chilly in his stillness as he waited.  
  
Then, Ginkaku laughed. “Crossing our palms with silver, eh lordling?”  
  
“I wonder if he’s worth his weight in gold, Ginkaku.”  
  
Only here did the façade break, Uchitaro’s typical knife-like smile coming into the mix. “Oh, much more.”

* * *

Yaranzo was not conscious for the negotiations, but when he awoke on the trip back he found that the shogun was travelling with them, bound and surly. He tried to speak with Uchitaro about the resolution of their conflict with the Gold and Silver Brothers, but the sharpness had not yet melted from the prince’s edges, the face of Tetsumaru-sama hard and smooth as polished steel.  
  
It was just as well that he could not see the losses they had suffered, for he slipped in and out of the land of waking for several days. At some point, they haggled for the release of their horses from the stalls they had visited on the way into the Land of Lightning, and he supposed they had also purchased a litter for their injured members.  
  
When they had finally made it back into the Land of Iron, back to the capitol, he could tell: the air smelled different, filling his lungs with the cool sweetness of home. He woke often then to find Saki hovering over him, a deep furrow in her brow and a furious spark in her eye. She was clearly holding back her reprimand, but through his haze he could feel the frustration in her ministrations.  
  
She said little to him when he asked about the surviving members of the search party, of the shogun, of Uchitaro. “You will see soon. There is to be a ceremony when you and the others are well.” She paused, considering him carefully before gripping his hand. “The daimyo is pleased with you.”  
  
It was little enough, but this made him glad.  
  
He spent the days leading up to the procession convalescing, gently regaining his strength as much as he could. Somehow, although the injury to his shoulder was slight and the shards of Uchitaro’s wakizashi had created superficial cuts to his face and neck, he felt even more drained than he did after the Battle of the Wolves. There was no infection to speak of, his physical wounds cleaned and knitting together easily enough. For all intents and purposes, he should not have even needed to be in the infirmary wing of the daimyo’s compound, and yet Yaranzo had never felt so weak.  
  
Lifting his head was a great effort, dizzying and warm, and when he turned his focus inside he could see that his inner flame still flickered against his ribs desperately in time with his heart.  
  
The day of the ceremonial procession dawned, and Yaranzo felt scarcely more alive than when he lay bleeding out on the battlefield in a fever dream of infection. Attendants came to prepare him as dawn broke over the mountain ridges which had been dwarfed in his memory. Saki hovered on the periphery wringing her hands, interjecting here and there with exclamations of concern and redundant medical commands. They ignored her, briskly washing his body and hair, dressing him in fine silk kimono, hakama and haori, tugging his hair firmly into place.  
  
As the attendants marched him down the halls to the assembly, Saki continued to flutter nearby, anxiously reaching for him while he struggled to keep pace with the brusqueness of the daimyo’s servants. At one point, she slipped under his arm, gently taking his weight onto her shoulders as they rounded the corner and neared the extravagantly painted shoji doors.  
  
His breath ripped from his throat in that moment of stillness, his heart thundering against his ribs, spots formed behind his eyelids. Saki’s grip tightened on him, and he offered her a weak smile, tugging his arm from her and straightening, painfully slow. “Thank you, Saki-san. I will continue alone from here,” he added, waving off the attendants.  
  
Somehow he made it past the threshold into the room, bowing deeply to those already in attendance before finding his seat, settling onto the cushion more or less gracefully. The ceremony, which appeared to be closer to a trial, passed before his eyes. He vaguely registered the shogun being presented, the daimyo looking down his fine nose at him; he heard the charges presented, and he saw when the shogun bristled and spat at the offer of clemency.  
  
For everything else he was, the shogun was a samurai to the core, and he raised his chin at his accusers. “I will take my life to defend the honor of my actions, as all of my ancestors have before me.”  
  
Baiganemaru watched him for a moment, frozen in time with his silvery glittering eyes. Then his lips quirked into a smile that Yaranzo had never seen on another human before, which chilled him to his very spirit.  
  
“I have heard, Yoshinaka-dono,” he said softly, his tone cool and unhurried, “that deepest wisdom is earned through suffering.” His eyes sparkled, considering the shogun thoughtfully. “I cannot speak for the wisdom of your actions, but fear not – tonight, you will become very wise.”  
  
To his credit, the shogun did not lower his eyes as he was escorted from the room.  
  
A cool heaviness settled on the room, even as the proceedings shifted from the dire situation of the shogun to the celebration of the warriors who had retrieved him. It was here that Yaranzo learned of the casualties: Tadanobu had given his life during the battle with the Gold and Silver brothers, and Sanada became victim to his wounds on the journey home, as well as four others of their troupe. All in audience prayed for their spirits, thanking them deeply for their service.  
  
Then, one by one, the survivors were called upon for Baiganemaru himself to honor them with his thanks. In succession, the daimyo, his retainers, and Tetsumaru bowed deeply to each of the remaining samurai, presenting them with gifts of land or position. Finally, Yaranzo heard his name, and he staggered to his feet, placed them one in front of the other, slowly making his way to the row of stern faces bearing down on him.  
  
The daimyo paused, locking his silvery eyes on Yaranzo’s. “You have come from a family with no name; not only have you served me well in the battle against the shogun, you served my son in the task of retrieving him. For the great dedication you have shown my family, I would like to prevent you with these blades.” He gestured here at a trio of blades propped on a lacquered stand on the dais. “These spoils of war have been in my family’s possession for three generations, and I trust that you will make use of them in your new role, as part of the new dawn I wish to shine upon the Land of Iron.”  
  
Yaranzo bowed deeply, breathless at the honor begin bestowed upon him – not only heirloom katana, but a future in the daimyo’s service, a place.  
  
But the daimyo was not done.  
  
“Further, for the loyalty you have shown my family, I have another gift for you, who has come from no name: I gift to you a character from my own name, to honor the victory you brought us in the Land of Lightning. Rise, now, samurai. Rise, and be reborn:  
  
“Shirokatsu of the Lightning Blade.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buddy road trip, buddy road trip! I had a big debate with myself on whether to do the Sandaime Raikage for the cameo this chapter, or the KinGin Kyodai, but I'm glad I chose the brothers because they're such assholes. And a name change! Apparently it was common practice for samurai leaders to gift their subordinates with characters from their name - in this case, the daimyo gifted the character in his name which means 'white' and can be read as 'bai' or 'shiro'.
> 
> Still setting up a bit of background, but this was more of a fun, action-y chapter before we get into politicking next chapter.
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who has read and supported this fic so far! It means a lot to me! I hope everyone is enjoying it.


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